Remembering "Scooter"

Posted at 10:47 AM on August 15, 2007
by Chris Dall

As many of you know by now, New York Yankees legend Phil Rizzuto died yesterday at the age of 89. Here's a look at his career stats. While the offensive numbers don't jump out at you, aside from his MVP season in 1950, what really made "Scooter" special was his fielding, as his .968 lifetime fielding percentage would attest. Rizzuto also played in 9 World Series', and in 4 of those series did not commit a single error.

But most people of my generation who grew up in New York in the 1970s remember Rizzuto more as the rambling, absent-minded, story-telling play-by-play man for the Yankees. Most of the time it seemed the game was just background to Rizutto's meandering commentary on food, weather, traffic, or whatever else came into his head. All punctuated by his noted catch-phrase, "Holy Cow!", which he often blurted out for even the most routine plays. Here's a look at some his more famous musings.

And, unfortunately, we also remember Rizutto for less notable achievements, like his appearance in television ads for "The Money Store," and his play-by-play commentary in the Meatloaf hit "Paradise by the Dashboard Light." Legend has it that Scooter wasn't aware of the nature of the song, and later tried to distance himself once he realized it wasn't about baseball.